A feeling for history

Thomas Piketty argues that economists need to more seriously engage with history to understand inequality. In his two books on capitalism, Piketty does just that. But what type of history? This essay argues that Piketty, following the example of the Annales School and Braudel's The Mediterranean, has produced a powerful “descriptive” history, a still underappreciated form of work that is often incorrectly contrasted with analytical history. Piketty's insights stem from the power of description in telling us “what was the case,” as Allan Megill argues, and thus precedes causal explanation. When it comes to change over time, Piketty follows the model of eventful temporality that William Sewell has proposed. In contrast to positivist social science, which is built around deep constants over time, Piketty understands that the forces of history subject even seemingly stable structures to change. For this reason, he also believes it is possible to overcome the deep inequalities that have long existed in capitalism.